The Sage of Omaha has been shopping at Tesco again.
Warren Buffett, one of the world’s most influential investors and America’s second-richest man, picked up almost 2 million more shares in the supermarket chain.
He has been building his stake in Tesco gradually since first buying the shares in 2006, when Britain’s most successful retailer unveiled plans to push into America.
Through the Berkshire Hathaway investment company he runs, Mr Buffett now owns more than 3 per cent of Tesco, making him the fifth-biggest shareholder.
With the shares 3½p higher at 400p yesterday, his stake is worth £968 million.
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Perhaps the famously frugal Mr Buffett, like other investors, was relieved that no VAT was introduced on food in this week’s emergency Budget.
No doubt he too cheered the likely boost to sales of beer and burgers from the progress of England’s football team to the knock-out stages of the World Cup.
Supermarkets have already shifted 54 per cent more televisions in the four weeks before the tournament kicked off, according to the market researchers at Nielsen.
All of which buoyed the sector generally, as Wm Morrison added 7¼p to 272½p and J Sainsbury advanced ¾p to 331½p.
However, stock markets were again skittled by concerns over the strength of the global economic recovery and renewed concerns over the financial strength of Greece.
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The FTSE 100 fell a further 78.29 points to 5,100.23 as fears about the demand for raw materials crimped commodity prices and hurt those companies that unearth them.
Safety concerns again dogged resource companies. Kazakhmys, in whose copper mine three workers were killed by an explosion over the weekend, fell 59p to £11.10 after two further workers died in a Kazakh coalmine owned by ArcelorMittal, the world’s biggest steelmaker.
Rio Tinto fell 108p more to £32.82 amid continuing concerns that the Government of Guinea may take away part of the company’s Simandou iron ore concession.
The election of Australia’s first woman Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, did little to improve sentiment towards the miners, despite her promise to review the country’s controversial new “super tax” on resource companies.
Tullow Oil retreated 47p to £10.87 after Democratic Republic of Congo handed the rights to a pair of disputed oil blocks there to two little-known energy companies registered in the British Virgin Islands. Tullow, which previously held rights to the blocks alongside a South African company, insisted its claim was legally sound and was reviewing its options.
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Dana Petroleum was marked 99p lower to £11.66 after oil and gas explorer’s Bamboo well off the coast of Egypt came up dry.
On AIM, Solo Oil improved 0.045p to 0.415p after exercising its option to take up a 12.5 per cent interest in two blocks in the Ruvuma Basin in Tanzania, alongside Tullow, which owns half, and Aminex, unchanged at 7¾p, the holder of the remaining 37.5 per cent.
Oilex, an Australian-based AIM-listed oil and gas explorer, jumped 0.875p to 5.625p after the International Chamber of Commerce ruled in its favour in a dispute about $4.6 million owed from a joint venture in Indonesia.
The merger is off between Polo Resources, 0.175p higher at 3.8p, and Caledon Resources, down 4¾p at 30p. Instead of diluting its shares with a full bid, Polo is to lift its stake in Caledon to 29 per cent.
A 37 per cent jump in profits at Safaricom, a Kenyan telecoms company, spurred Vodafone, which holds a controlling stake, 1¾p to 143p.
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JPMorgan Cazenove told clients that Centrica, owner of British Gas, would be a likely beneficiary of the Budget, which the broker thought meant meddling by the politicians in the company’s affairs looked less likely. Centrica shares added 8¼p to 307¼p.
Credit Suisse gave United Utilities a push. The Swiss broker thought the water company’s shares looked cheap compared with rivals’, and set a target price of 602p. They rose 3½p to 525p.
McBride, which makes own brand household cleaning products for supermarkets, plunged 39½p to 139¾p after its new chief executive, Chris Bull, warned that revenues in the last three months of this year are likely to grow less than during the same period last year, while the cost of raw materials may rise as much as 6 per cent in the year to come.
Further hurdles to winning regulatory approval for an asthma treatment in America, sent Skypharma 6¼p lower to 28½p.
D1 Oils, a maker of fuel from plants and firm favourite among retail investors, tumbled 1¼p to 6¼p after warning that a £2.6 million sale of its Bramborough site was now in doubt. The unnamed potential buyer has run into trouble raising the cash.
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New York
Disappointing forecasts from retailers and concerns that plans going through Congress for new bank regulation could raise costs for the industry weighed on stocks. The Dow Jones industrial average closed down 145.64 points at 10,152.80.